Mirabel airport serves as a lesson for third link tunnel vision

With apologies to Yogi Berra, this whole troisième lien business seems “like deja vu all over again.” To borrow again from the Yankees legend, “the future is not what it used to be.”

What we have already seen in this country is the creation of what planners and government officials envisioned as the airport of the future, but ended up being one of the most lumbering white elephants of all time in Canada or elsewhere in the world.

We are referring here, of course, to Mirabel airport, a long and lonely ride north of Montreal, a stunning testament to the ability of otherwise intelligent people to make a colossal miscalculation of human behaviour.

Mirabel was supposed to be the visionary answer to a looming overcapacity problem at Dorval airport. This was back in the exuberant Expo ’67 era when Montreal seemed to be on the brink of a massive expansion and in pressing need of a new air hub to welcome the zillions of visitors and immigrants who surely would be arriving in droves.

After a prolonged and disputatious process of picking a site - the federal government wanted Vaudreuil-dorion, the Quebec government wanted Drummondville - the compromise was farmland about 60 km north of Montreal around Ste. Scholastique. A swath of nearly 100,000 acres was expropriated and construction of what was then the world’s second largest airport, at least by area, got underway.

Then stuff happened. Recession. Oil price shock. Political uncertainty. Montreal-mirabel airport opened in 1975; the last passenger flight was in 2004. In 2016 the massive futuristic terminal building was demolished. The separate cargo facilities continue to operate, in fact the place will undergo a $100 million expansion. The future turned out to be on-line sales and air courier packages.

Fast forward to the 21st century and again some political futurists are dreaming up another project for the ages, a third crossing of the Saint Lawrence River at Quebec City to relieve the perceived traffic congestion of an expanding city. For the record, commuter times in Quebec City are among the lowest for a comparable city in North America.

The notion of a third link has been kicked around at the political level for decades. A study done in 1963 for the government of Jean Lesage suggested a tunnel for $32 million crossing from Levis and surfacing in the Saint Roch district.

Even earlier, according to an excellent 2016 article in Le Devoir on the history of tunnel visions in Quebec, a study prepared for premier Maurice Duplessis had concluded a tunnel would be less expensive than a bridge and, this being the Cold War, would provide shelter in the event of a nuclear attack.

The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government announced in June its preferred option for a third link would be a 10-km tunnel running from the end of Autoroute 40 in Beauport under the western tip of Ile d’orleans emerging on Route Lallemand in Levis where it would connect with Autoroute 20.

In making the announcement, Quebec Transport Minister Francois Bonnardel said the project is for the “next 100 years.” Another more central route is also under study by the office set up by the previous Liberal government to deal with the third link business.

While there are myriad questions about a tunnel or any kind of third link, such as cost, financing, environmental impact, traffic projections, urban development consequences, the big question remains: Why?

Critics of the project point to the weakest link in the case for a third crossing based in the eastern end of the city. Studies of traffic patterns show all but a trickle of the flow to and from the north and south shores is destined to the concentration of commercial, office, university and health activity in the west end near the existing two bridges. What commuter on the south shore would take a tunnel across the river in the east only to have to traverse the entire city to get to work in the west?

Regardless, the CAQ government is proceeding full speed ahead and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, no doubt courting that CAQ vote, has said his government would make the tunnel a priority.

To borrow again from Yogi - “it’s not over until it’s over.”